Alexander David Stewart
Served 1880-1886
Alexander David Stewart was born to Scottish parents at Leghorn, Italy in 1852. Privately tutored at first, he studied medicine for five years in Scotland but rarely practiced. Instead, he headed for Canada in the mid 1870’s intending to join the North-West Mounted Police. After he arrived, during the first four or five years, he worked as a bank clerk, temperance advocate and clerk at Osgoode Hall in Toronto.
When Chief Alexander McMenemy (1876-1879) of the Hamilton Police Force died in 1879, Stewart, big and raw boned at 6’3” and 220 lbs., applied for the job. Three days after his 28th birthday, he became the Chief.
Once established, he reorganized the Force by increasing the detective branch from two to four, introducing a “rogues gallery”, modernizing uniforms, purchasing a patrol wagon, (the second in North America after Chicago) and starting a police library and museum.
He became an active member of the Hamilton community. We seem him here as a member of the Hamilton Foot-ball Team of 1883.
On Thursday evening, February 14, 1884, there was a benefit held at Hamilton’s Grand Opera House in aid of the Thirteenth Battalion Band and the Hamilton Police Department library and reading room fund.
Long before the program was to begin, a ‘standing room only sign’ was posted at the entrance of the large theater.
1883, Hamilton TiCats Football
– standing 3rd from left –
The evening performance began with the playing of various selections by the Thirteenth Battalion Band which were well-received. Police Chief A. D. Stewart then made a few introductory remarks, explaining that the purpose of the benefit was to raise funds to help the Thirteenth Band cover its expenses and to purchase books and magazines for the library and reading room at the King William street police station.
There were two other exhibitions of ‘knife fighting’ and ‘boxing’. Then the schedule called for a fencing contest between Professor McGregor and Police Chief A. D. Stewart: “Alex. D. proved by his knowledge of fencing that ‘he was no slouch’ as Josh Chapman expressed it and was adjudged the winner by the referee who was nowhere to be seen.”
Genevieve de Brabant and was sung by a ‘police’ choir which included a few pseudo-members of the force. “Chief Stewart and three ‘alums’ arrayed in great coats and helmets next appeared to sing the Policeman’s Chorus. The singing was O.K.
As well as being an able administrator, he was a brilliant investigator. One investigation in 1884, ended in an irreparable breach between Stewart and Chief Draper of Toronto, when Stewart impulsively accused his colleague of being “an enemy and a coward.”
It started when Stewart arrested one George Garner who had a wagon load of property stolen from Toronto. Garner implicated Toronto policemen but when Chief Draper questioned him, he claimed Stewart had offered to go easy on him, if he would implicate Toronto officers. Unresolved accusations and recriminations flew between the two police chiefs privately and through the media.
Early in 1885, Louis Riel and his followers established a provisional government in the North-West Territories. When the rebellion collapsed in May, the Federal government recruited Stewart as principal investigator. Riel, who some felt was mentally ill, was executed in November. (There is a “ball and chain” currently displayed at the Hamilton Police Museum. They may have arrived here with Stewart upon his return and he may have used them to contain Riel.)
This photo was taken at the trial with Louis Riel standing and Stewart sitting and the second shows him seated with more of the accused.
THE INFORMATION AND COMPLAINT OF ALEXANDER DAVID STEWART, OF THE CITY OF HAMILTON, IN THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO, IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA, CHIEF OF POLICE…: So, begins the Indictment of Louis Riel.
The Hamilton Police Chief (and later Mayor) swore out the indictment which sent Riel to the gallows. Stewart is seen here,1885, (with hat) next to Pitikwahanapiwiyin, Cree Chief Poundmaker (with vest), namesake of Poundmaker Cree Nation, Sask. Poundmaker’s peaceful entreaties for food and land prior to the Battle of Battoche were overlooked, and he was charged and wrongfully convicted of treason with Riel.
The image, above is from the Hamilton Civic Museum collection and formed part of an exhibit in November 2008 at the Fieldcote Museum, Ancaster to celebrate the Hamilton Police Service’s 175th anniversary and 50 years of women in Hamilton policing. (Front Row L-R Horse Child, his father Mistahi-maskwa (Chief Big Bear – also convicted, served two years), Alexander Stewart, and Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker – served one year, released due to ill health. Died less than a year after release, likely of TB contracted in prison). Back Row L-R: Constable Black, Father Louis Cochin, Inspector R.B. Deane, Father Alexis Andre, and Beverly Robertson (Big Bear’s lawyer).
Between March and October of the following year, Stewart was arrested, almost drowned, and forced to resign from the Police Force: In March, he chased a fugitive from Hamilton to New Brunswick. Acting upon independent advice, he refused to obey a court order that he take his prisoner to Halifax. Instead, he fled aboard a fast mail train pursued by Halifax Officers who arrested him when his train ran off the rails at Newcastle, Ontario. In the end both the Chief and his prisoner were released.
One Friday in August, Stewart, his wife and their daughters, almost drowned, when their rowboat overturned in the Hamilton Bay. Had Captain Campbell, with his assistant Robert Curtiss not happened by, all four would have perished.
It was the September meeting of the Police Commission that heralded the end of Stewart’s police career. The Chief and the Mayor, who was chairman, arrived nursing grievances. In A.D.’s case, he hired a cab at the cost of one dollar to transport an invalid to court. The Mayor refused to pay the bill, so A.D. had to pay it himself. The Mayor on the other hand, had signed a petition urging the release of a prisoner named McGrath, who had assaulted police officers. Stewart felt this was unacceptable that the Chairman should show such contempt for the police. The meeting almost ended in a fist fight.
Subsequently Stewart was elected Mayor of Hamilton and served in that role 1894-1895. This portrait of A.D. Stewart was taken when he was Mayor of Hamilton.
Some years later, Stewart and companions, set off for the Yukon goldfields. October found them at the confluence of the Peel and Beaver Rivers, where they were forced to winter in temperatures as low as -46 degrees.
One week before Christmas he tripped while carrying a heavy log. He injured his right ribs and left thigh and was pinned to the ground by the neck. His leg became infected causing his condition to deteriorate until March 13, 1899, when he died. He was 46 years old.
1895 Arrest by Mayor Alex Stewart
Never a good idea to fight a Hamilton mayor, especially one such as 1895 Hamilton Mayor A. D. Stewart, a former police chief and a famous champion athlete in his younger years:
Hamilton Spectator. June 24, 1895.
“Mayor Stewart had an experience at his residence Saturday afternoon and so did Charles Munsel, a tramp. The mayor was on his veranda with his wife and children when Munsel approached on the street and made obscene and insulting reference to his worship. Mr. Stewart walked to the sidewalk to discuss matters with the stranger and a row ensued. Munsel grabbed at the mayor’s neck and tried to bite his hand. Seeing that he was bound to fight, the athletic chief magistrate picked him up, carried him to the veranda and putting him down, sat on him till the patrol arrived and took him away.
“He was charged this morning with disorderly conduct, and, at the request of the mayor, who thought he had been punished enough, the police magistrate allowed him to go on suspended sentence. Munsel is a stranger from Buffalo.”
To bury him, his companions burned logs for ten days to melt the permafrost enough for a grave about 12 inches deep to be scooped out. They wrapped him in a flag and then covered him with rocks. A simple wooden marker bore only his initials and the date of his death.
Alexander Stewart was the youngest person,
at age 28,
to become Hamilton’s chief constable.
By Dave Bowen, Retired Inspector, Hamilton Police Service